Bridge

“There were two ways of playing the diamonds,” South alibied, after going down in Three No-Trumps on this deal, “and although I chose the better line it proved wrong.” I suppose that that was true, as far as it went, but there was a third approach, easy to overlook. Any ideas?

North opened One Diamond and rebid Three Diamonds over South’s heart response. Now-Three-No-Trumps-by South was passed out and West led the spade jack, removing one of dummy’s entries and making it more difficult to develop the long suit.

South’s two ideas were: 1) lead the diamond queen from dummy, smothering his own ten, which would work whenever the diamonds broke 3-2; and 2) lead a low diamond from dummy, which would work if either defender held a singleton honour or if they mistakenly won the first round of the suit. Reasonably enough, declarer chose line one and, as a result went down, albeit unluckily. As you can see, line 2) would have worked.

And the third possibility? Come to hand with the heart ace at trick two and then lead the diamond ten. If West has to play an honour (as he does), the problem is solved. And if West is able to play low on the diamond ten, then declarer overtakes on the table and relies on a 3-2 break. The extra edge comes from seeing a card from West before deciding whether overtaking is necessary or not.

It may look dangerous to release the heart ace so early but South’s hearts are just goodenough. IfEastwinsa diamond and pushes a heart through, South simply covers whatever is led and can lose at most two tricks in the suit no matter how it is divided.